Coffee-Table Notes

When Mary McCluskey visited New York's Tartan Week with Scottish Youth Theatre in 2008, all concerned got more than they'd bargained for. It was set to be the first time First Minister Alex Salmond and his parliamentary team had seen the organisation McCluskey has been artistic director of for almost twenty years perform there, and he arrived early while rehearsals were still ongoing. Given the Minister's unexpected presence, proceedings were put on hold to enable SYT's guest to chat with the company. Rather than a cosy Q and A session, however, the SNP leader was challenged on the state of drama school training in Scotland, both in terms of funding and facilities. The next generation of theatre workers then explained how difficult some of them were finding it to raise funds for drama school and were being forced to look at institutions south of the border. Somewhat chastened, Salmond responded with aplomb, even promising to help one of them to find fun

Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow 3 stars Since the Scottish Jazz Federation founded the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year competition five years ago, the event has become a consolidation of talent hungry enough to already be out there doing it. All five of tonight's finalists may be no older than twenty-one, yet they've been learning their chops with assorted youth jazz orchestras and at various music schools for some time. Small wonder chair of the judges Dennis Rollins, who led a panel that included Herald and Jazz UK critic Rob Adams, praised Scotland's musical and educational networks, singling out the winner as someone possessed with a way of communicating ideas beyond instrumentation to create what he deemed “a magic.” Backed by the sterling house band of drummer Tom Gordon, bassist Mario Caribe and Paul Harrison on keyboards, all five finalists took a forward-thinking approach to the old school, from pianist Peter Johnstone's opening Keith Jarret

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow 4 stars Bard in the Botanics may not have the full-on whistles-and-bells resources of Take That's Hampden Park extravaganza, but there's a definite whiff of X-Factor-age showbiz about Gordon Barr's jazz-age musical reinvention of Shaky's ever malleable new age rom-com. A not so big top beside the Kibble Palace morphs into a glitzyu nightclub, complete with a bevy of dancing girl and boy fairies, Puck as a Cabaret style MC, and bill-topping show-girl Hippolyta mashing up Fever and Madonna's Vogue for Theseus' high-rolling rat-pack. Clearly the place to be, Puck's place becomes an arena for after-hours adventures and almighty benders. Bottom and his band of players, meanwhile, come on like an alternative comedy troupe whose rubbish act is part Marx Brothers, part Vic Reeves. This Dream, then, is a riotous jukebox musical, with cheesy pop classics by Lady Gaga, Kylie and Abba rearranged as showtunes a la Glee by a fantastic band dra

Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh 3 stars When Frank McGuinness' new version of Ibsen's nineteenth century assault on morality appeared in 2010 in a production by Iain Glen, McGuinness' language was rightly praised for its frankness. London Classic Theatre recognise this enough to give it serious treatment in Michael Cabot's look at the play, even if at times it is let down by uneven acting and melodramatic flourishes that render it off-kilter. Set on the day before widowed Helene Alving is about to erect a monument to her seemingly respectable husband, the play's ghosts cast up by the pious Pastor Mander are nothing compared to those inherited by Helene's prodigal son Oswald, in blissfully horny ignorance as he chases the maid just like his old man did. The opening scene between maid Regine and her grizzled father looks promising in this Irish-accented version that lends things a chewily vivid speakability. Which makes it all the more mysterious why Brendan Flem

The first time Paul Henderson Scott saw Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, Sir David Lyndsay's sixteenth century epic that took the rise out of church, state and gentry, it was a life-changing experience. That production of Scotland's oldest known surviving play, as knocked into textual shape by Robert Kemp, was seen by Scott at the 1948 Edinburgh International Festival. Then, as he related to National Theatre of Scotland artistic director Vicky Featherstone several weeks ago, he couldn't believe he'd never seen it before. Here was a play that represented his culture, his history and his mother tongue in a way that nothing else had in his experience. Since Scott's eureka moment, he has gone on to see it in home-grown productions in 1949, 1973 and in 1985, when Tom Fleming's production for the now defunct Scottish Theatre Company played at the Edinburgh International Festival. The production was revived the following year at Glasgow's Theatre Roy

Various venues 4 stars It's 4.55pm on a rainy midsummer solstice, and at assorted hubs around Scotland, the logo on the National Theatre of Scotland website looks suspiciously like the BBC's old trade test transmission, cheesy muzak and all. By 5.01pm, however, actress Sally Reid is being beamed in from Perth Theatre, where she is playing the venue's ghost in a fittingly theatrical opening monologue for this unprecedented live streaming of two hundred and thirty-five bite-size plays broadcast over twenty-four hours across the world. Ten minutes later, Tam Dean Burn is wearing a toy theatre on his head beside the Clyde with a glove puppet salmon on one hand and the rush-hour traffic behind while Beltane style percussion is beaten out. Within the hour we've seen a swimming pool choir, a Gaelic internet dating yarn and several contemporary dance troupes from all parts of Scotland and beyond. There's brilliant work too by Douglas Maxwell and Dundee Rep,

Dundee Rep 4 stars It's a somewhat disarming experience seeing a second home-grown production of Dennis Kelly's brutal two-hander within weeks of Glasgow's Citizens theatre's own. Set in a nuclear fallout shelter where Mark and Louise might just be the last two people alive following an apparent apocalypse, Kelly's drama sets up an increasingly ugly power-play between Mark's geeky outsider figure and his vivacious and popular work-mate that is at times harrowing to watch. Director Emma Faulkner takes the audience off-site to a concrete props store that gives the action the gritty, grimy feel required and leaves both actors with nowhere to hide. Pulsed by the low hum of Philip Pinsky's sound design, things start quietly enough, as Tony McGeever's Mark attempts to explain to Helen Darbyshire's Louise exactly what happened before and after the blast. Before long, though, hidden agendas come to the fore as it becomes clear that the game M